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Since the recognition of the Human Right to Water and Sanitation by the United Nations in 2010, processes and debates have emerged regarding its effective implementation on an international, European and Spanish scale. Without doubt, the expression Human Right to Water is a key point of reference in debates about the management of urban water supply and sanitation services. However, the interpretations about the meaning of this Right are often excessively simplistic. On the contrary, the initiative promoted in Spain by various social groups and the Association of Public Operators of Water Supply and Sanitation Services (AEOPAS), called the Social Pact for Public Water, has moved in a different and enriching direction. This article presents a comparative analysis of the main aspects and implications of the notion of Human Right to Water approved by the United Nations and the Social Pact for Public Water developed in Spain. This issue has been published as Volume 5, Number 1 of the WATERLAT-GOBACIT Working Papers (http://waterlat.org/publications/working-papers-series/). This is a special series of the Working Papers, titled “The struggle for democracy in Spain: grassroots initiatives to defend essential water services as a common good”, José Esteban Castro (Ed.), Edurne Bagué (Org.).

This issue is part of the activities of the WATERLAT-GOBACIT Network’s Thematic Area 3 (TA3), the Urban Water Cycle and Essential Public Services (http://waterlat.org/ thematic-areas/ta3/). TA3 brings together academics, students, professionals working in the public sector, practitioners from Non-Governmental Organizations, activists and members of civil society groups, and representatives of communities and users of public services, among others. The remit of this TA is broad, as the name suggests, but it has a strong focus on the political ecology of urban water, with emphasis on the politics of essential water services. Key issues addressed within this framework have been the neoliberalization of water services, social struggles against privatization and mercantilization of these services, the politics of public policy and management in the sector, water inequality and injustice in urban areas, and the contradictions and conflicts surrounding the status of water and water services as a public good, as a common good, as a commodity, as a citizenship right, and more recently, as a human right. The publication is a contribution of the Network within the framework of the Cooperation Agreement with the Public Services International (PSI) on issues of common interest (http://waterlat.org/projects/cooperation-agreement-with-the-psi/). In this case, the special issue is the outcome of the work of a member of our team of postgraduate students, Edurne Bagué, who is a native from Catalonia and is currently completing a PhD at the Centre for Higher Research and Studies on Social Anthropology (CIESAS) in Mexico City. Her research focuses on the grassroots mobilization that has been taking place in the city of Terrasa, Catalonia, seeking to end a 75-year history of privatized water supply and “remunicipalize” the service. As discussed below in relation to Article 6, Terrasa Municipality finally decided to take back the water services into public hands on 22 March 2018, as we were finishing the publication of this issue. The case of Terrasa is part of anationwide processin Spain, whereby widespread mobilizations to oppose further privatizations of water services and to bring back under public control those systems that had been privatized have been taking place over the last decade. In TA3 we thought that producing a special issue of the Working Papers dedicated to this process could be an important contribution to the international debate, fostering further exchange of knowledge and experience on this urgent matter. I dared to propose Edurne Bagué to take responsibility for the organization of this issue, and I am glad that she accepted the challenge and brought it to fruition. I am sure that it will be received as a welcome contribution to the ongoing debates. The issue has 6 articles, authored by academics, postgraduate students, practitioners, municipal officers, among other, all of them involved in diverse ways with the social organizations participating in the campaigns.

Proyecto: Atlas digital colaborativo de la justicia ambiental en el agua. Contribución a la transparencia y los datos abiertos en las políticas públicas El mapa de los conflictos del agua en Andalucía es una herramienta que tiene como objetivo cartografiar y documentar de manera colaborativa los principales conflictos, debates e iniciativas sociales en torno al agua en Andalucía. El proyecto se inspira en el Atlas de la Justicia Ambiental (https://ejatlas.org/) y en el ideario del movimiento por una Nueva Cultura del Agua. Este proyecto de investigación-acción tiene por objetivo experimentar nuevas formas de co-producción de conocimiento que contribuyan tanto a mejorar la información sobre los conflictos del agua en Andalucía como a innovar en gobierno abierto en esta comunidad. El proyecto está coordinado por la Universidad de Sevilla y se apoya en la Red Andaluza de la Nueva Cultura del Agua (https://redandaluzaagua.org/).

This project builds on previous studies, to construct a process of social and collaborative mapping that leads to the production of a map on water conflicts in Andalusia (Spain). This contributes to current debate in the field of Environmental and in particular Water Justice and the map is conceived as a knowledge tool to substantiate rights to a sustainable and ethical use of water for human and non-human uses (Hofrichter, 1994). Indeed, the process of building the map is understood as constructing a civic space for the effective exercise of social and environmental rights which civil society is responsible for together with the state (Brañes Ballesteros, 2004).

The emergence of sustainable development as a mainstream issue in the global political agenda defused voices critical of the limits to growth by embracing the discourse of ecological modernization. According to this narrative, environmental problems can and should be dealt with by the promotion of economic growth within existing economic and institutional arrangements. The field of water governance echoed this discourse in the new integration ideas of integrated water resources management, which has gradually become a dominant water management paradigm over the last decades. In the meantime, the western scientific arena has experienced a drastic epistemological shift from mechanicism to complexity. A theoretical basis of complexity underpins the new field of sustainability science, which strives to respond to the challenges associated with retrieving unsustainable patterns through inter- and transdisciplinary research on social-ecological systems. However, water science for governance is slowly mirroring the epistemological implications of complexity, such as the existence of multiple perceptions of nature, the multi-scale organization of living systems, and circular causality as the main type of relationship maintaining this organization. Some research challenges associated with these issues are the following: integrated analysis involving multiple scales and dimensions; mechanisms for quality control over the narratives leading problem-solving; and critical assessments of win-win techno-social fixes. This dissertation attempts to respond to these challenges by offering a complex systems perspective on water resources management that conceptualizes watersheds as social-ecological systems. The research objective is to develop an integrated assessment of the implementation of sustainability objectives in water policies in two semi-arid water basins: the Andarax River basin in Almeria (Spain) and the Tucson basin in Arizona (United States). For this purpose, the dissertation proposes a theoretical framework for the integrated assessment of water governance that combines a series of conceptual devices, such as a complex definition of water use, a holarchic depiction of coupled water-human systems, the water metabolism of social-ecological systems, the semiotic process of water management, and water availability as a boundary object. This conceptual repertoire is operationalized through a methodological framework that bridges quantitative analytical tools, such as a spatial-relational data model and the Multi-Scale Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism, and qualitative discourse analysis and assessment of public policies. The first case study follows the implementation of the first cycle of the Water Framework Directive 2009-2015 in the Andarax River basin. It begins with a thorough characterization of the water metabolism of one sub-basin, linking the analysis of societal and that of ecosystem metabolism on a spatially explicit basis. It is proposed that the analysis of ecosystem metabolism should be carried out through the eco-hydrological processes that control water resource renewability (supply-side sustainability), the impacts caused to ecosystem health (sink-side sustainability), and the boundary concepts of water availability and ecosystem water requirements. The analysis revealed the metabolic pattern of a high mountain rural system with a multi-functional economy striving to deal with exodus and agricultural land abandonment. Centuries of social-ecological evolution shaping waterscapes through traditional water management practices have influenced the eco-hydrological functioning of the basin, enabling the adaptation to aridity. Management challenges posed by the European water regulatory framework as a new driver of social-ecological change are highlighted. In the second analytical chapter, the interplay between agricultural and water policies is assessed on a multi-scale basis by bridging the analysis of management plans and that of societal metabolic patterns. The resulting analysis shows that the integration of these policies is undertaken at regional level through techno-social fixes consisting mainly of new resources and the improvement of irrigation efficiency. Agriculture is the main driver of water use patterns, and a range of which are found in the basin with different associated challenges regarding the meeting of environmental objectives of the Directive. The trade-offs associated with management decisions are uncovered in terms of the rebound effect in water use and the intensification of the energy cost of the water supply. The case study ends with an assessment of the semiotic process of the water management cycle. Discourse analysis shows the existence of multiple contested narratives surrounding the question of how water should be managed. However, the dominant narratives pervading water management decisions prioritize high-cost supply augmentation as a means of coping with environmental objectives. Critical narratives that pinpoint structural problems of metabolic change in rural communities, offer eco-integrative views of economic development, or denounce institutional dysfunction, are disregarded. The analysis shows that management strategies so far have been largely cost-ineffective in a context of financial austerity, and that the management system is notably vulnerable to perturbations. The improvement of information, transparency and accountability arises as a key challenge in the fostering of trust and the improving of adaptive capacity. The second case study reviews the state of the art of current debates surrounding the sustainability objective in Arizona water policy, focusing on the Tucson basin area. Achieving safe yield for aquifers by 2025 was endorsed in the Groundwater Management Act of 1980, and since then three management cycles have implemented different strategies to pursue this. These combined growth control measures, improved productive efficiency through conservation practices and new resources from the Colorado River and wastewater reclamation. Combining a historical perspective on water use and its drivers with spatial analysis of groundwater management, the analysis of the study area shows how the Central Arizona Project was a tipping point in the water metabolism. The Project allowed continuing fueling economic growth, both through multiplying the sources available and through the infrastructural and institutional complexity involved. The research indicates that growth limitations have only been operative in the agricultural sector, which drives overall demand and overdraft variability. Conservation programs have been effective in the most important segment of the demand, which is the residential use of large urban areas. The recharge and recovery program was the key innovative solution to curbing overdraft, although fiddly accounting and legal mechanisms obscure an uneven progress towards safe yield. The disconnection of recovery from recharge sites entails local impacts on water table levels driven by mines and new developments. While new infrastructures are being negotiated in order to expand the reach of the supply from the canal, vulnerability to potential Colorado water shortages and the high uncertainty over the achievement and maintenance of a distributed safe yield appear as core management issues for the next decade.

El concepto de 'megaproyecto' ha adquirido en los últimos años una notable operatividad para categorizar un tipo de intervenciones físicas, generalmente infraestructurales, que reúnen una serie de características comu-nes. El objetivo de esta comunicación es mostrar cómo el proceso de proyección y construcción del embalse de Los Melonares y sus obras auxiliares, a lo largo de un periodo de más de 25 años (1989-2015), responde a este modelo. A través del análisis empírico de este caso se pretende comprobar la solidez del planteamiento teóri-co, a la vez que se presta atención a cómo las circunstancias singulares, dinámicas y rodeadas de incertidumbre de cada contexto socio-ecológico (marco físico natural, aspectos económicos, sociales, culturales, instituciona-les, políticos) interaccionan en cada caso específico para dar lugar a procesos territoriales concretos y fluidos.

SWAN - Sustainable Water Action Project

River basin modeling under complexity requires analytical frameworks capable of dealing with the multiple scales and dimensions of environmental problems as well as uncertainty in the evolution of social systems. Conceptual and methodological developments can now be framed using the wide socio-eco-hydrological approach. We add hierarchy theory into the mix to discuss the conceptualization of river basins as complex, holarchic social-ecological systems. We operationalize the social-ecological systems water metabolism framework in a semiarid watershed in Spain, and add the governance dimension that shapes human-environment reciprocity. To this purpose, we integrate an eco-hydrological model with the societal metabolism accounting scheme for land use, human activity, and water use. We explore four types of interactions: between societal organization and water uses/demands, between ecosystem organization and their water requirements/supplies, between societal metabolism and aquatic ecosystem health, and between water demand and availability. Our results reveal a metabolic pattern of a high mountain rural system striving to face exodus and agricultural land abandonment with a multifunctional economy. Centuries of social ecological evolution shaping waterscapes through traditional water management practices have influenced the eco-hydrological functioning of the basin, enabling adaptation to aridity. We founda marked spatial gradient on water supply, use pattern, and impact on water bodies from the head to the mouth of the basin. Management challenges posed by the European water regulatory framework as a new driver of social-ecological change are highlighted.